Have You Passed Through This Night?
by SquintSquad17
Summary: "Tony, if this is to be the last memory I have of you, please do not ruin it by talking about one of your movies."
1. First Breath After Coma

**A/N**: So, this is a lot of dialogue and sort of fragmented. I don't really know why, except it came out that way. I hope you'll give it a chance – it's a little different, I know. The title is from the Explosions in the Sky song of the same name. Review and all that jazz.

-x-

"You know, this reminds me of a movie I saw once."

The words break the heavy silence that had begun to fall, echoing loudly in the space around them. He's not sure why he feels the need to say anything at all, but the only thing he can hear is the constant drip of water that they can't reach, and it's beginning to drive him crazy.

"Tony, if this is to be the last memory I have of you, please do not ruin it by talking about one of your movies."

He can't see her in the dark, but he can picture perfectly the look of annoyance he's sure she's wearing. "Fine. In that case, I'll start talking about how you should drink the rest of my water."

"As I have already to you, that is a moo point. You need the water more than I do."

"A _moot _point, Ziva." He sighs exaggeratedly. She had been doing so much better since she'd become a citizen, too. "It's not a phrase about cows."

"Whatever. The meaning is the same – you should be the one to finish the water."

"Like I said before, I'm not going to." Tony waits a beat before adding, "So, back to that movie."

-x-

The silence is back, and it's making him nervous. They're both too tired to keep up a running conversation, but Tony still can't stand that damn drip of the water that's somewhere above them, tantalizingly out of reach. He wishes he could at least see Ziva – that would help calm him down a little. All he knows is that she's sitting somewhere across from him, and that if he moves his leg to the right, it brushes against hers. (It hurts to move that much, though, so he's been keeping all his limbs to himself like a good boy. Mostly, at least.)

"Ziva?" He breaks finally, casting his voice into the darkness once again.

"Yes?"

"I'm just checking. It's been a while since you've said anything."

"I am trying to conserve my energy," she says, not unkindly. "I would suggest you do the same."

"Okay," he agrees. "But try to make a noise every so often so I don't think you're dead, or something."

"That would defeat the point of conserving energy." She sounds amused, but he's not entirely sure.

"Yeah, well, it would save me the energy I'd spend trying to figure out if you've gone and died before we've been rescued." He shuts his eyes tightly – not that it matters in the darkness – and tries not to think about being stuck alone down here with her lifeless body.

"I –" Ziva sighs and trails off.

"What?"

"Never mind. It is nothing."

"Come on, it's never nothing with you."

"It is just that I – I do not think we are going to be rescued, Tony."

He musters up a teasing tone from somewhere. "Your optimism is blinding."

"I am only trying to be realistic."

"Well, _realistically_, Gibbs and the rest of the team are probably looking for us right now."

"Yes, I am sure they are," Ziva says after a moment, and Tony has the distinct impression she is saying this for his benefit alone.

"But?" he prompts.

She sighs again. "_But_ I do not think they will find us in time. We went off grid a long time before we ended up down here."

"Well, we still have some water, and you have that power bar thing." The positive attitude and unfailing faith in Gibbs feel more like habit at this point; if he's being honest, he knows Ziva is probably right. He refuses to admit this to her, of course.

"That is true," she concedes. "I am more concerned about your injury, though."

"It's nothing." (It's not nothing, and they both know it.) "Besides, you're just as banged up as I am."

"_I _do not have broken ribs and quite possibly internal bleeding."

"You have that cut on your head, though. That looked pretty gruesome." It really does, too – jagged and trailing all the way from her temple to her chin.

"How would you know that? It is too dark to tell."

"It happened before we got stuck, Ziva. I watched him hit you. And I think you got some of the blood on me." Tony thinks she probably has a concussion, too, but there's not much to do about that, and she'll just deny it if he asks.

"Oh."

"And let's not forget about your ankle."

"That, at least, does not matter, since I doubt we are going to be running any time soon."

"I guess being stuck in a mineshaft has its perks."

Ziva chuckles darkly. "I do not know if I would call them perks, Tony."

"Po-tay-to, po-tah-to."

The silence returns once more.

-x-

"You should really let me look at your ribs. I might be able to help."

He tries to ignore how tired she sounds and how tired he feels. _Joke_, he tells himself. _Make a joke; it's what you do_. "So you can work your Mossad voodoo on me in the pitch blackness?" he says finally, after a beat too long. "I don't think so, Ziva."

-x-

He lost track of how long they've been down here a forever ago. He bets Ziva would know down to the second, but he's almost afraid to ask. The power bar is gone, split between them both, and they're going to have to drink the water soon. That façade of optimism he's been trying to keep up is slipping for longer and longer stretches of time.

"I was wrong," he says before he can stop himself.

"You are wrong about many things, Tony, so you will have to be more specific."

"About getting out of here."

"There is still time."

He laughs, but he's not really sure that any of this is funny anymore. "Don't tell me you're getting soft in your old age, Ziva."

"Now it is you who is being the Debbie Donor."

"Downer," he corrects. "Debbie _Downer_."

-x-

"_Tony_!"

Ziva's voice is sharp, and it pulls him immediately from whatever sorry state of sleep or oblivion he'd fallen into. She's sitting beside him now, and he has no idea when that happened, but she's warm and a nice distraction from the constant presence of pain.

"Tony, you need to stay awake. Please, you need to stay–" She breaks off, uncharacteristic emotion coloring her voice, and he can hear the words she doesn't want to say aloud.

"I'm awake," he mumbles, and he doesn't think he's imagining the quick brush of her lips on his cheek.

_You need to stay alive._

-x-

When Ziva finally makes him drink the water, he doesn't protest. He won't say it out loud, but Tony thinks it doesn't matter anymore. They're both going to die in this abandoned mineshaft, and whoever gets the last two inches of water from his canteen won't make a difference. His ribs are on fire, and if there had ever been any doubt that he was bleeding internally, it's pretty much gone now. There's no way a few cracked bones could hurt this much.

"I'm sorry," he rasps, the words nearly choking him on their way out.

"For what?" She is still by his side, and he can tell that she's rewrapped his ribs and wound without him really being aware of what was going on. That, he thinks, is probably a very bad sign.

"For getting us stuck."

"It is not your fault, Tony. Davenport is the one to blame."

"But if I hadn't suggested we follow him down here–"

Ziva scoffs. "Tony, there is no way you could have known that he had planned to trap us the entire time. The entrance caving in was not our fault."

He doesn't really believe her, so he doesn't say anything. Instead, he wonders if this is the point in the movie where he's supposed to tell Ziva everything he's never told her. There's a lot of it, he knows, so he might want to get started before he kicks the bucket.

"Ziva, I–" he begins, but a horrible, wracking cough cuts him off, and he gets another metallic taste of the blood he's been hacking up for the past however long.

"Hush, Tony," she says softly, in the gentlest tone he's ever heard her use. "You can tell me later."

-x-

The next thing he is aware of is a light so blindingly bright that he's sure he's dying. He can't see anything but the vaguest outline of someone hovering above him. Everything else is a white blur, until a wave of pain washes him over, sending black dots into his vision.

_Pain_.

He doesn't think death is supposed to hurt, so maybe he's still alive after all.

His voice seems to have taken a vacation, because no matter what words he tries to say, nothing will come out. He's lying down, but he thinks he's being moved, because the outlines that he is starting to see are flickering by.

Then, there is a small hand smoothing his hair back from his eyes, and he recognizes the touch. Ziva. It has to be Ziva.

He wants to say something, anything, but all he can do is stare into the white light as the outline of her becomes just a little clearer.

"You are going to be fine, Tony. We both are," she says, her voice fuzzy and distant. "It looks like you were right, after all." She laughs softly, and it sounds like bells. "I will not admit that again, so I hope you can hear me."

Tony shuts his eyes in response, wondering if she will know that he means he doesn't plan to forget that. The darkness that replaces the white is not much better, and he doesn't like that he can't see Ziva anymore, so he opens his eyes again.

This time, he can see her with a little more clarity; her hair is wild, and the cut seems worse than he remembers. She looks beyond exhausted.

She has also never looked more beautiful.

-x-

When he wakes up again, he is in a hospital bed. The team is all in his room, breaking what must be about ten hospital regulations.

"Tony?" Ziva finally breaks the silence from her spot in the chair closest to his bed. He would bet his movie collection that her doctor doesn't know she's left her own room.

"Yes?" He barely manages the one word, his voice cracked and barely there.

"I am just checking."


	2. Catastrophe and the Cure

**A/N: **So, I was sort of entirely blown away by the lovely response to the first chapter of this. It was originally meant as a one-shot, but I was struck by inspiration, and I don't like to upset my muse. I do think this is really the end, though, so I hope you like it! Oh, and the chapter title is the name of another Explosions in the Sky song. (:

-x-

"I think we should talk about it."

It has been two weeks since they were rescued from the mine, and one week since what he has begun to refer to as The Incident. He wonders absently what she calls it, if she calls it anything at all. Maybe it's just The Mistake to her.

"There is nothing to talk about, Tony." She says this so matter-of-factly – so 'drop this now, or I will hurt you' – that he would let it go if it were anyone else. Or about anything else.

But it's not and it isn't, so he says, "You can't really believe that."

"I can." She tips her chin up defiantly, daring him to question her.

"Ziva–"

"It was nothing."

It's that same damn tone that gets to him. He will never understand how she can shut her emotions off so quickly, so easily, so completely. And so he snaps, words sharp and bitter. "Oh, I forgot – Mossad practically encourages partners to sleep with each other, so a kiss was probably nothing to you."

"_Tony._" Her voice is just as icy, and his name cuts through the space between them. "You are not only my partner. You know that."

"Then don't stand there and tell me it didn't mean anything, Ziva. You were the one who came to my apartment."

"Tony, this is like riding a dead horse." She sighs, deflating as the air leaves her. "It does not matter what you – or I – would like it to mean. It will have to mean nothing."

"Ziva," he begins, but she is gone, turning faster than he would have thought possible, slipping down the corridor and back to her desk. He is left alone with a loud silence and the knowledge that he has nothing but a mound of paperwork to look forward to.

"_Beating_ a dead horse," he mutters finally, his words fading to nothing almost instantly.

And he follows Ziva's path back to his desk, it takes all of his self-control not to break the nearest object. (This restraint happens to be a godsend for McGee, who walks by a moment later.)

-x-

This is how it happened –

He is released from the hospital, told to take some time off to rest and heal. Apparently, broken ribs and internal bleeding are 'not to be taken lightly' – at least according to Dr. Taylor, a middle-aged man who dislikes levity almost as much as he dislikes ninja patients who sneak out of their rooms before being released.

Tony only takes one week instead of two; he has always been too impatient, too restless, to enjoy vacation time when it's mandated. If he's not getting out of something he doesn't want to be doing, it doesn't count, and to be honest, even desk work is better than feeling so utterly useless.

But, since he still has to take seven days of time off, he mostly stays on his couch, a drink in one hand and the television remote in the other. (He fits a slice of pizza into the routine occasionally, too.) His ribs protest any movement, but his movie collection is up to date enough that he's not _that_ bored until about the fourth day. McGee and Abby stop by every once in a while, usually uninvited but never unwelcome. Ducky stops by twice, and even Gibbs comes by once to remind him that just because he's accident-prone, it doesn't mean he gets to slack off when he returns to work.

By Sunday, though, he's still one ninja short from having seen the whole team during his 'vacation.' But just when he's accepted that he won't see her until he's finally back at work the next day, there's a knock at his door. It's around eight, and the pizza delivery man is never this early (Tony would know), and there's no way it's anyone but her.

He opens the door, trying to convince himself that the feeling in his stomach is just his ribs beginning to ache again.

"That's funny," he drawls, leaning against the frame, the picture of nonchalance, "I thought my pizza came with a free order of breadsticks, not a complimentary assassin."

She scowls at his remark, but makes no response other than, "May I come in?"

It's not like she really has to ask, but he responds with a "sure" all the same. He backs up to give her room to walk inside, then shuts the door behind her. He turns to face her in the hallway right before the living room, waiting for her to speak.

"Gibbs said you will be coming back tomorrow."

"Yeah, just for desk duty. It'll be a little longer until I'm cleared for fieldwork."

The silence that follows his words is deafening, built up tension and what happened in the mine hanging heavily between them.

"Ziva, you didn't come all the way over here to make sure I'll be at work tomorrow." It's not a question.

She shakes her head before taking a step toward him. "Tony," she begins, "last week–"

He doesn't wait for her to finish, doesn't really need to hear what she's going to say. She's here, after all, so he has a general idea. Besides, he has other plans that don't particularly include talking. In one motion, he pulls her close to him.

And then they are kissing. His hands in her hair, hers wound tightly around his neck. She tastes like years of broken promises and almosts, of _having phone sex?_, of _I'm tired of pretending_, of _couldn't live without you, I guess_.

And then the doorbell rings. They snap apart like they've been electrocuted, her hair a mess and his ribs a little worse for wear.

"Um. I ordered a pizza," he says lamely.

Ziva tucks a curl behind her ear. "Then you better answer the door," she replies, and the lack of emotion in her tone sets warning bells off in Tony's head.

He turns and opens the door, but before he can say anything else, she pushes past him and disappears. Tony shoves too much money at the very confused delivery man, grabs the box, and then slams the door with more force than _technically_ necessary.

And when he shows up for work the next morning, she says hello like she hadn't kissed him less than twelve hours before.

So, yeah, that's how it happened. And Tony's pretty sure he never wants pizza again.

-x-

When he finally gets the go-ahead for fieldwork, he wants to jump on his desk and cheer so the whole building can hear. He refrains, though, afraid of what Gibbs might say if he were to walk in on Tony standing on all of his newly completed paperwork.

Unfortunately for him, however, their next few cases are open and shut ones. Easy to solve, without any of the excitement that Tony has been craving. It's a jealous wife, then a abusive husband, then another jealous wife. No great, big mysteries there. (And what this really means is that there is nothing to take his mind off Ziva and The Incident.)

"You okay? You're looking a little out of it," McGee finally says, catching him staring off into space for what feels like the hundredth time. "Maybe you shouldn't have come back to work so soon – you were hurt pretty bad."

"Don't worry, McRib, I'm fine." He smiles, but, considering McGee's answering frown, it must look as fake as it feels.

"If you say so, Tony."

-x-

And then, just because he spent so much time complaining about the boring cases, they get one that almost goes horribly wrong. It's a husband and wife team on an officer shooting spree that comes complete with a chase through the city that ends in nothing less than a shootout in an abandoned, powerless warehouse.

"It's like they think they're a modern-day, middle-aged version of Bonnie and Clyde," Tony mutters as they move through the shadows.

He hears Ziva chuckle behind him, and he's about to commend her for actually knowing the reference, when the first shot goes off.

And after that, it all goes to hell. The husband and wife – Mr. and Mrs. Robert Norton – fire off round after round, and in the darkness of the warehouse, it's nearly impossible to tell where the shots are coming from. They wait, crouched behind barrels of god knows what, until finally, finally, Ziva is able to sneak around to where Mrs. Norton is crouched with her gun. Of course, Mr. Norton takes this as his cue to come out of his hiding place for the sole purpose of pointing his gun at Ziva while her back is turned.

It's stupid and reckless, but Tony wastes no time at all tackling Ziva to the ground, consequences of jumping in front of the gun be damned.

The bullet misses his head by a fraction of an inch.

Neither the husband nor the wife ends up being quite so lucky.

-x-

He's ready when Ziva arrives at his apartment later that night, and he has the door open almost as soon as she begins her insistent pounding. She moves past him without waiting for an invitation this time, then rounds on him. He shuts the door and waits, half-amused by and half-afraid of the look on her face.

"What happened today is why we cannot do–" She waves her hand between them, frustration all but radiating off of her.

"Do _what_, Ziva?"

"Whatever _this _is, Tony! It is too dangerous," she snaps. "You cannot save me at the cost of your own life."

He shrugs. "It didn't cost me my life, seeing as I'm still breathing." His re-injured ribs are actually making that a little difficult, although he's not going to bring that up right now.

"You are missing the point."

"Or maybe you're failing to make one."

"Impossible man," she scoffs.

"You're not much better, you know."

Ziva lets his words hang between them for a few moments before she finally responds. "It is not a good idea, Tony. It would likely end in us both being hurt."

"Well, I've always been a glutton for punishment."

"_Tony_."

He thinks she probably meant it as a warning, but he takes it as an invitation instead. And when she doesn't pull away from him, he thinks maybe that's what it was all along.

-x-

"Do you think Gibbs knows instinctively when one of his rules is being broken?"

"For both of our sakes, I hope not."

"Maybe he has an alarm that goes off. Or some sort of sixth sense."

"Tony, if you want to be thinking of Gibbs right now, perhaps I should come back another time."

This effectively shuts him up.

-x-


End file.
